


parents, and how subtly shitty they can be

by yhighon



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Bad Parenting, Gen, Gifted Kid Burnout, Hinata Hajime-centric, Kamukura Izuru Project | Hope Cultivation Plan, another vent, this is literally just me projecting onto hajime bc im sad about my parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:02:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26386849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yhighon/pseuds/yhighon
Summary: it’s almost funny to him. all of it, for nothing. his childhood wasted, only to end up on a boat in the middle of the ocean, a newly-reformed war criminal. nights spent up until late hours of the morning, editing a paper or trying to figure out how to do calculus, all for nothing.(or, hajime thinks about his parents, and his education)
Relationships: Hinata Hajime & Komaeda Nagito, Hinata Hajime & Soda Kazuichi
Kudos: 39





	parents, and how subtly shitty they can be

hajime has never gotten along with his parents.

there were occasional good times, mostly when he was younger and thought of his parents as god. the bad times were few and far between, because hajime had worked hard to get good grades (even though he hadn’t understood why, at just ten years old, an ‘a’ on a piece of paper was so important). 

the burnout came later, after a failed experiment and the end of the world. he fought against burnout for so long, got projects and papers done at 11:55, doing assignments in the last 20 minutes of class when he’d had the whole period, opting instead to stare out the window at the main course building.

his parents didn’t notice, just praised how he looked on paper.

he’d never gotten along with them as people. wasn’t sure how to. they never laughed at his jokes (and there were only about half of them he could say anyway), didn’t care about his life, and it was only once hajime got to hope’s peak that he felt he could even breathe, out from under his father’s thumb.

hajime wasn’t really a people person to begin with, but he especially didn’t know how to interact with the people that were supposed to know him the best.

(it was only later that he found out they never really liked him at all.)

eventually, he got over it. dodging calls from his mother (the only one who cared enough to call) and sending one word texts back to his father, he managed to grieve over parents who weren’t even dead.

it almost would have been better had they died. at least then, he could have kept the idealized version of them. could have kept the idea that they loved him for the actual person he is, instead of as a way to brag on facebook and to coworkers he’d never met.

as much as hajime hates his parents, he misses his mother. misses having her hug him when he would cry over dumb things, misses having her talk about her own childhood.

but even if she were there to hug him, tell him stories, it wouldn’t be the same. he can’t even try to fake it anymore, like he did for all those years.

he’s the family disappointment, and he doesn’t even have siblings to compete with. just his own fear of failure and the hope that his parents will someday look back and realize how much he tried.

he hasn’t talked to his parents since before the tragedy. doesn’t want to even know if they’re still alive. they probably aren’t, and hajime doesn’t know if that’s better or worse.

he’d never told them about the kamukura project. about what it was even for. the perfectionism that plagued him and the expectations of his parents were large factors in why he’d signed on; maybe if he was perfect, or at least turned into the academy’s idea of perfection, maybe he could finally answer his mother’s calls.

maybe he could finally call himself their son.

but that didn’t happen. instead, hajime hinata was gone, replaced by a shell of indifferent talent, one izuru kamukura. he never saw his parents again.

and now, he doesn’t want to see them.

he doesn’t miss them. he used to feel guilty about it, back when he was still just a student in the reserve course. used to think he should miss them, because, after all, they were paying his lofty tuition.

it’s another reason he took on the project. if he could stop relying on them, maybe they would appreciate him more, miss him, instead of worrying about tuition.

he should’ve just been glad for the opportunity to go to hope’s peak in the first place. he’d always been fascinated by the school, always wanted to go there. the day he could leave his old high school was the day he felt alive.

at the time, it was all he wanted.

most of their parents are dead. souda managed to kill his own father while he was ultimate despair, and many of the others’ parents died during the tragedy or in the aftermath.

only some have actually expressed grief over it. hajime doesn’t push, tries not to bring it up, not even to komaeda, his main confidant on the island.

it’s too hard to talk about to komaeda, who had his parents die before the tragedy. 

hajime and souda have talked about it some, when they were both very drunk and alone in souda’s room.

he always feels bad talking about to souda, though, because he always tends to feel like he’s exaggerating. souda’s father was an asshole, an asshole who beat him and left him saddled with long-lasting emotional issues.

even if his parents were alive, they have no way of finding him, and hajime prefers it that way. technically, to everyone except the future foundation, they’re still ultimate despair, which means they have to keep a low profile.

naegi has offered to track down family members before, but almost none of them have taken him up on his offer.

nobody wants to face the times they had before the tragedy, remembering it is too painful, compared to their current reality.

their parents would bring back too many memories, if they were alive. worse, if they were dead. the hope that they might be alive somewhere, in one of the rebuilding cities, is good enough for some of them.

for others, they try not to think about it.

hajime is in the latter category. he hates thinking about his parents, his childhood in general. his whole life he strived to be gifted (at least academically, if not in a more literal sense) and he sits here now, a war criminal in hiding.

it’s almost funny to him. all of it, for nothing. his childhood wasted, only to end up on a boat in the middle of the ocean, a newly-reformed war criminal. nights spent up until late hours of the morning, editing a paper or trying to figure out how to do calculus, all for nothing.

if it wasn’t so funny to him, he might just have a breakdown.

**Author's Note:**

> yeah. sorry


End file.
